The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

Reincarnation (18+)

What's It About? 

Reincarnation: A schoolgirl named Airi suddenly rapes her childhood friend, compelled by memories of serial killer Oshikiri Makoto. He overwrites her personality with his own, uses Airi's body to seduce his female victims, and even lets her be raped in front of her own father...all in the name of revenge.

Ogre: A monster capable of transforming into whoever it eats consumes a sorcerer, and attempts to conquer and entire kingdom through an endless cycle of impregnation and birth.

Reincarnation has a story and art by DATE, with English translation by Jon Moreau. This volume was lettered by Vladyslav L. and retouched by Anton Caladiao. Published by J18 (October 2, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

The wild world of hentai can produce some pretty cheeky and fun shenanigans. But the flipside of niche fetish material necessarily also results in shenanigans of the cruel and tragic variety. Reincarnation occupies that second camp, a work whose content necessitates virtually every warning imaginable. It presents graphic sexual violence not as a dark underscoring of any seriously presented material, but instead intended for titillating effect. It's going to come off as reprehensible and repelling to a large portion of the general audience.

However.

If this particularly extreme flavor of non-con does inform some of your darker fantasies, then you'll feel like part of the gang with Reincarnation. It takes a second before the actual premise behind the story becomes clear, as leading lady Airi seems to experience an oddly timed psychological sadomasochism awakening—and having her first act being to rape her male classmate at least marks this story's action as equal-opportunity. Only a little later does the actual angle of Airi and her classmate Himeno being reincarnated criminals become clear, which then motivates the even heavier hardcore actions the story gets up to. The writing uses the reincarnated, overwritten-memories mechanic to reinforce the point that emotional extremes are as important as physical ones when it comes to making material like this hit. Throw in some psychosexual drug trips, and you're got a fair variety of material here, so long as you're into multiple layered flavors of non-con.

Reincarnation certainly never forgets that it's porn, not really going many places with the mechanics of its story beyond using "sex criminals reincarnated as hot high school girls" for the most obvious parts of that premise. The final chapter does employ a couple of escalations, but by then the story's over and there's nothing else to be followed up on for it. But then, it is porn, and there it does what it needs to do. The art's gleefully graphic (and extremely uncensored for this release), and while character anatomy can sometimes look inconsistent, artist DATE has a very good handle of the variety of facial expressions in the context of all this violation.

The volume's b-side story, Ogre, actually does go into some deeper ideas while still keeping up the clip of sexual violence (as well as adding vore to the list of fetishes covered here). The fantasy setting and monster focus let it go harder on the body horror, while still including a gender-flipping body-jacking mechanic that is the whole "thing" of this book (it also pops up in the mini bonus chapters at the end, it's clearly a personal favorite of DATE's). Between the two I think I liked Ogre more on account of having more to it. But if this kind of content is your niche, this whole package will probably work extremely well for you, no judgment.

Well! Reincarnation is definitely a lot and a half. The mangaka mentions having been inspired by a “Western fantasy series” when he was writing one of the sub-stories in the manga (likely Game of Thrones, and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the darker fetishes on display in Reincarnation. Honestly, man-eating ogres pale in comparison to schoolgirls realizing they're reincarnated sleazebags and running roughshod all over their classmates.

Airi's descent into her depraved former self's personality is on full display, and the series relishes in that at every turn, be it her making mockeries of her fellow students to her being made a mockery of. The final twist is a lot, but it's a suitably attention-grabbing twist—and honestly, it's the kind of bonkers gut-punch that made Metamorphosis a meme among people who read those kinds of manga. Meanwhile, Ogre definitely leans into the “dark fantasy” setting with its grotesque monsters and its bizarre twist. Is it a happy ending? Well, it's an ending, I'll give it that!

Also, the final “Residence” shorts thrown in at the end of the volume make me squint a little, if only because I'm not sure whether they're meant to be connected to Erect Sawaru's Residence of Obscene Art as a tribute. I give the second chapter credit for its novel twist, forcing a would-be predator into a time loop where they victimize themselves eternally.

Can I recommend Reincarnation? I don't know! It's not even because I think this story is necessarily reprehensible or anything; if anything, I applaud it for committing to the bit and even swinging for the fences with regard to its gut-punch endings. That said, I think the themes at play will only appeal to a fairly small audience. I'm not even sure if I could recommend it to curious readers who just wanna rubber-neck the series because the art isn't quite the best: men are all invariably weird and pruney-looking, and the women seem very inconsistently drawn. I also feel like those who want to explore darker themes in their erotica probably have better stuff to read.

Reincarnation is a series of story compilations about possessing bodies. Some are pretty typical like fantasy creatures taking over the bodies of beautiful women to seduce people so they can be consumed. Others are so complicated that I spent more time scratching my head than getting turned on. The first half of this book is the longest and most complicated story about serial killers utilizing drugs and black magic to reincarnate into other bodies that they will eventually take over after they recall the memories of their past lives. I was starting to get numb to the science of it all just a few chapters in and honestly, I was sighing a breath of relief when the rest of the stories in this compilation weren't nearly as complicated.

The downside to them not being nearly as complicated anymore is that they were boring. There's an overall setup with some of these stories, we get to the rather well-detailed gangbang scene, and then the story just stops without any real payoff to it outside of the obvious “and then everybody dies.” There was one story with a bit more of an emotional hook toward the end and probably could've been the basis for an entire volume but that's not the point of these stories. This is all set up for a lot of non-consent and forced gangbang situations. The appeal is in watching people have their control taken away or see them get manipulated by somebody else for a sexual act. If that is your cup of tea, there is at least one thing for you. The artwork is incredibly detailed and facial expressions in particular are very visceral. The author knows who they are trying to appeal to and does that in spades.